Quality of mobile telephony
Judging from their buildings and their aggressive advertising campaigns, Greece’s mobile phone operators are robust and prosperous. They all provide new phones, new technologies, a wide range of user services. Nonetheless, there seems to be something wrong with the quality of their services, as technical problems have soared recently. Disruptions are frequent, the signal is often weak, even on central roads. You’re driving down Kifissias Avenue in the morning, for example, and you try to use your cell phone. The system is out of order. The same thing occurs on the National Road at the Liosia exit, in the southern districts near Faliron or in the north on Penteli mountain, and in many other districts of the capital. But in downtown Athens as well, the very first tall building is an obstacle that paralyzes Greece’s robust mobile telephony. It is clear that the excessive growth of mobile telephony in Greece has not been accompanied by high investment. The major companies received permits for free about 10 years ago, they made some basic investment at the start and ever since they have savored the revenues coming in from the millions of subscribers who rushed to use the new services. According to a moderate estimate, profits in recent years came to more than 1 trillion drachmas, a sum which does not justify the quality of services. Some attribute the current communication problems to the fact that calls are made all at the same time – when people are stuck in a traffic jam. Then, especially in the morning hours, drivers all try to reach their offices simultaneously, hence overloading the system of a specific server. Traffic jams tend to cause telecommunication jams. In any case, mobile phone companies have to make new investments to improve the quality of their services. The infrastructure has exhausted its potential and it cannot shoulder the burden of 7 million subscribers. Profits are good; but profits entail obligations.
